An investigation of the pH-activity relationships of Cex, a family 10 xylanase from Cellulomonas fimi: xylan inhibition and the influence of nitro-substituted aryl-beta-D-xylobiosides on xylanase activity

The kinetic parameters of Cex, a family 10 xylanase from Cellulomonas fimi, were determined at various pH levels using soluble birchwood xylan (BWX) as a natural polymeric substrate along with three other synthetic aryl-beta-D-xylobioside substrates. Using BWX, a high level of substrate inhibition was observed which increased with decreasing pH. In contrast, typical Michaelis-Menten-type profiles were obtained using the three aryl-beta-D-xylobiosides as substrates. The k(cat) values determined using o-nitrophenyl-beta-D-xylobioside did not change as the pH increased, whereas the k(cat) values obtained with BWX, phenyl-beta-D-xylobioside and p-nitrophenyl-beta-D-xylobioside decreased, suggesting that the presence of an ortho nitro group affects the activity displayed by Cex. These differences were not observed with XynB from Clostridium stercorarium F9, a member of the same family of xylanases as Cex. These results indicate that a careful evaluation is required when employing substituted aryl-beta-D-xylobiosides in the characterization of xylanases.     

Interactive segmentation of the cerebral lobes with fuzzy inference in 3T MR images.

Measurement of volume and surface area of the frontal, parietal, temporal and occipital lobes from magnetic resonance (MR) images shows promise as a method for use in diagnosis of dementia. This article presents a novel computer-aided system for automatically segmenting the cerebral lobes from 3T human brain MR images. Until now, the anatomical definition of cerebral lobes on the cerebral cortex is somewhat vague for use in automatic delineation of boundary lines, and there is no definition of cerebral lobes in the interior of the cerebrum. Therefore, we have developed a new method for defining cerebral lobes on the cerebral cortex and in the interior of the cerebrum. The proposed method determines the boundaries between the lobes by deforming initial surfaces. The initial surfaces are automatically determined based on user-given landmarks. They are smoothed and deformed so that the deforming boundaries run along the hourglass portion of the three-dimensional shape of the cerebrum with fuzzy rule-based active contour and surface models. The cerebrum is divided into the cerebral lobes according to the boundaries determined using this method. The reproducibility of our system with a given subject was assessed by examining the variability of volume and surface area in three healthy subjects, with measurements performed by three beginners and one expert user. The experimental results show that our system segments the cerebral lobes with high reproducibility.     

LD抽运的Cr4+∶YAG被动调Q Nd∶YAG激光器

研究了不同谐振腔下不同透射率的Cr4 + ∶YAG调Q的激光输出特性。采用透射率为 82 %的Cr4 + ∶YAG ,在抽运功率 1 1W时 ,激光重复频率小于 3kHz,单脉冲能量达 2 0 μJ ,可以作为微脉冲激光雷达的发射光源。分析和比较了实验结果和理论计算 ,两者吻合较好     

Molecular imprinting of biotin derivatives and its application to competitive binding assay using nonisotopic labeled ligands

Synthetic biotin-binding polymers were prepared by molecular imprinting. Methacrylic acid (MAA) was copolymerized with ethylene glycol dimethacrylate in the presence of biotin methyl ester (B-Me) in chloroform. Hydrogen-bonding-based complexation of B-Me with MAA generates the binding sites complementary to B-Me after extracting B-Me from the resulting copolymers. Data from NMR titration suggest a one-to-one prepolymerization complex formation of B-Me with MAA in chloroform. A possible complex structure was estimated by docking of the most stable conformers by intermolecular Monte Carlo conformational search under the assumption of a one-to-one association. The selectivity of the imprinted polymers was investigated and an imprinted polymer-based competitive binding assay for B-Me was demonstrated using biotin p-nitrophenyl ester as a nonisotopic-labeled ligand.     

Crystallographic Orientation Dependence of the Schottky Properties of Au/SrTiO3 Junctions

Crystallographic orientation dependence of the Schottky properties of Au/Nb-doped SrTiO₃ (STO:Nb) junctions has been investigated using single crystals of STO:Nb (1 0 0) and (1 1 1). It is found from electrical properties that the Schottky barrier height (SBH) of the Au/STO:Nb junctions estimated from current density (J)-voltage (V) characteristics shows crystallographic orientation dependence, while the flat band voltage estimated from capacitance (C)-voltage (V) characteristics is independent of the orientation. Displacement currents originated from the junction capacitance have been clearly observed at reverse bias voltage even in a condition of dV/dt 8.75 × 10^–3 [V/s] because of large electrostatic permittivity of the STO, and the displacement currents also showed crystallographic orientation dependence. The different response in the electrical properties of the Schottky junctions suggests that electric properties of intrinsic low permittivity layers, which exist at Au/STO:Nb interfaces, have the crystallographic orientation dependence.     

c-axis Superfluid Response and Quasiparticle Conductivity in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ and Bi2Sr2CuO6+δ

Josephson plasma resonance for underdoped Bi ₂ Sr ₂ CaCu ₂ O ₈₊ and Bi ₂ Sr ₂ CuO ₆₊ have been measured by sweeping the microwave, frequency continuously. The resonance enables us to determine the superfluid density and quasiparticle conductivity in the c-axis accurately. We show that the. superfluid response and the low energy excitations out of the condensate in the c-axis of these materials are very different from those in the ordinary Josephson multilayer tunnel junctions. The Josephson coupling energy in single layer Bi ₂ Sr ₂ CuO ₆₊ is more than 5000 times smaller than is predicted in interlayer tunneling model.     

BSCCO Superconductors: Hole-Like Fermi Surface and Doping Dependence of the Gap Function

We use the gradient of the energy-integrated angle resolved photoemission (ARPES) intensity in order to define precisely the Fermi surface (FS) in BSCCO superconductors. We show that, independent of the photon energy, the FS is a hole barrel centered at (, ). Then, the superconducting gap along the FS is precisely determined from ARPES measurements on overdoped and underdoped samples of Bi2212. As the doping decreases, the maximum gap increases, but the slope of the gap near the nodes decreases. Though consistent with d-wave symmetry, the gap with underdoping cannot be fit by the simple cos(k _x) – cos(k _y) form. A comparison of our ARPES results with available penetration depth data indicates that the renormalization of the linear T suppression of the superfluid density at low temperatures due to quasiparticle excitations around the d-wave nodes is large and doping dependent.     

Low Frequency Susceptibility of High-Density bcc Solid 3He in the Paramagnetic and Nuclear-Ordered States

We have measured the AC magnetic susceptibility and static magnetization of high-density bcc solid ³ He through the nuclear-ordering transition. The susceptibility in the paramagnetic state strongly depends on the frequency of the measuring field. Near the transition temperature a sharp peak in the real part of the AC susceptibility and an abrupt depression in the imaginary part are observed. The transition temperature indicated by the AC susceptibility is higher than that derived from static magnetization. We analyzed the new behavior in the susceptibility in terms of the spin relaxation between the Zeeman system and the exchange system. The relaxation time in the energy flow in the two systems is in the range of milliseconds in the paramagnetic state, and decreases drastically by two orders of magnitude in the ordered state. The relaxation time in the paramagnetic state is interpreted as due to exchange narrowing, while in the ordered state is explained to be the drift time of the spin wave limited by the size of the sample grown in the pores of the sintered silver. The ordering temperature is given as a function of molar volume in the entire range of the bcc phase.     

Space charge behavior in polymer film based on increment of capacitance under AC high field

Polymer materials have excellent dielectric and insulation properties; however, those properties in AC high field region have not been known well. Recently we established an evaluation method of high‐field AC dissipation current waveform of polymer materials 1 . AC dissipation current waveforms of polyethylene and polypropylene films show nonlinear distortion in AC high‐field region. This nonlinearity was thought to be related to the behavior of AC space charge formation in the sample near electrodes. The properties of space charge formed under AC high field at power frequency seem to differ from those formed under DC high field. The measurement of AC space charge distribution is not so easy due to the resolution limit of the space charge measurement. We studied the dielectric properties of biaxially oriented polypropylene (BOPP) film under AC high field up to 120 °C. It was found that tan δ, AC dissipation current (Ixr), and unbalanced component of capacitive current (ΔIxc) increased when the temperature became higher. In particular, ΔIxc increased above some threshold field and was considered to be due to the AC space charge formation. This AC space charge layer near electrode is thought to be formed due to carrier injection under AC high‐field application. Usually, the carrier mobility becomes smaller on lowering the temperature. Most of the carriers injected from the electrode are trapped near the electrode in the sample film. But in the high‐temperature region, the carrier mobility becomes larger and the carrier injection starts to increase from lower field. Many more carriers are injected from the electrode. It is thought that some of the injected carriers are trapped inside the sample film; the others go through the sample to the opposite side. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 141(2): 8–16, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.10018     

Chemorheology of an epoxy resin for pultrusion

The Williams-Landel-Ferry (W-L-F) equation was shown to describe the temperature dependence of the viscosity of a sulfonium accelerated, amine cured epoxy resin that had been formulated for pultrusion. The reference temperature and the viscosity at the reference temperature of the W-L-F equation were found to be simple functions of the resin advancement as determined by isothermal differential scanning calorimetry, A method is described of constructing the baseline for temperature-programmed differential scanning calorimetry analyses in which the heat capacity is changing due to reaction.